Warning sign: Rising health costs signal diabetes diagnoses years in advance
Researchers have found that increased costs for treating symptoms of diabetes can be tracked to five years before a diagnosis.
Health care costs for treatment of diabetes symptoms begin to rise as much as five years before an actual diabetes diagnosis, a new report has found.
The study’s authors said that the data, taken from commercial plan claims, suggest that timely prevention efforts could result in a considerable amount of health care cost savings for patients. Those savings, and the impact on productivity, have clear implications for employer-sponsored health plans as well.
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“Results show that the rise in medical spending associated with diabetes begins well in advance of the first diabetes diagnosis and support the need to encourage physicians to implement timely identification and prevention efforts to reduce the economic burden of the disease,” said the report in Population Health Management, a journal published by the National Institutes of Health.
A costly diagnosis
The study noted that in 2017, health costs associated with Type-2 diabetes was estimated to be $237 billion—with another $90 billion lost annually to reduced productivity.
The disease is not only costly to manage, it can also lead to other serious health conditions. “Between 2012–2017, the economic costs of diabetes increased 26%, attributed to both the rise in prevalence of diabetes and the increased costs per person with diabetes,” the authors wrote. “People with diabetes are more likely to have hypertension, to be hospitalized for a heart attack or stroke, and to die from a heart attack or stroke compared to their counterparts.”
However, diabetes is one disease where costs can be controlled with preventive medicine practices. The study noted that research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that lifestyle changes such as weight reduction can prevent diabetes. That research showed that a 5% to 7% body weight loss reduced the incidence of diabetes by 58%.
Prediabetes should trigger preventive efforts
Data from the study showed that costs for treating symptoms of diabetes can be tracked to five years before a diagnosis. The researchers further found that these costs begin increasing over time, and accelerate once a diagnosis of Type-2 diabetes is made.
The study, which compared patients with a diabetes diagnosis with a control group of patients without the disease, found that half the increase in costs comes quickly after the initial diagnosis. “Commercially insured individuals with newly diagnosed diabetes in 2014 spent $8,941 more than those not diagnosed with diabetes from 2010–2014,” the study said. “This cost differential or steepest jump, approximately $4828, was greatest in 2014 when all patients were diagnosed with diabetes, consistent with other research in this area using a diabetes index date suggesting higher costs of health care related to initial diagnosis.”
The researchers said that considering that symptoms begin increasing health care costs up to five years before a full diagnosis, preventive efforts to treat prediabetes could do much to control costs.
“Assuming individuals with prediabetes are able to maintain their health and prevent progression to diabetes, these individuals would expect to see a positive net savings and return on investment in health care expenditures over time,” they write. “Further, it is important to note that this net savings estimate of lifestyle interventions does not include the potential benefits from avoiding lost wages resulting from reduced productivity of the employed population.”
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